Playing card and method of making the same



March 12, 1940. w T N 2,193,638

PLAYING CARD AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Filed Feb. 12, 1938 3 55.9625-24 ,ar/n/s 84267;

L; ATTORNEY Patented Mar. 12, we

Lem-asmm PLAYING CARD 'zgattss v Woolridge. n.1, Morton, ew York, N. Y,

Application February 12, v1938, Serial No -190,193

f 1 Claim. (e1. 93-1 This invention relatesto improvements in playingcards and methods of making the same, particularly cards, for playingduplicate ,bridge' whist or like games where. it is'desired that thesame exact hand be played over again. J l

There are nowon the market various forms of apparatus for playingso-called duplicate bridge. The most common form of apparatus now usedfor: the purpose is the so-called whist board 0 wherein separate pocketsare provided foreach ofthe four hands, enough boards being provided l inthe set for an evenings play. A separate deck of cards is used for eachdeal, the cards being shuflied and dealt in the usual fashion. Duringthe play, however, each player must keep his cards separate from thoseof the other players by placing them in front of him as they are playedinstead of putting them in theiniddle of the table along with the cardsof'the other players where they can be taken'by the player of thewinning card and counted as a trick.

Each. of the separate hands so played is placed in the appropriatepocket of theduplicate board and laid aside and the play continued witha fresh deck of cards and a new board until the desired number of gamesis played. ,The same players at some later date play the hand overagain, theplayers, however, at the second session 7 playing the handsheld by their opponents at the first session. Y 1

The present-day bridge apparatus is bulky and cumbersome to handle andits use slows up the playing of the game.

The object of the present invention is-to provide cards in duplicatepacks with the cards already shufiiedf that is, in a random arrangement,but with the same random arrangement of both decks whereby one deckof'cards may be played inthe ordinary fashion and then at a latersession the second deck of the pair may be played with each pair ofplayers having the exact hands held by their opponents at the firstsession. The cards may be of the ordinary kind. and

used after the first use for games other than duplicate or they may beof very cheap cardboard so that they may be thrown away after the ed thesuccessive steps to be practiced in carry- 55 ing out my improved methodofmanufaoture.

twentyfour playing cards.

iFigs.- l-5 show the cards in various intermediate stages oimanufacture, while Fig. 6 showsthe completed cards ready for playing.

In manufacturing cards according to my invention'l preferably proceed asfollows: A roll of paper stock'which may be printed on one side f withsome conventional design which, however,, need not be identicallyregistered with the border ofeach card because the cards are to beplayed only once is cut in sheets of a size equal to, say, 19

' Each sheet is then printed with twenty-four separateimpressions of thesame card as shown in Fig. v1. Fifty-two.

sheets, eachone printed with one of fifty-two '5 cards, are then stacked(Fig. 2) 'one uponthe other and cut by a suitable die into twelve packs,the cards in each pack being the size of two finished cards and eachcontaining two identical impressionsof the same card as indicated inFig. 3. Eachoi' the twelve separate double packs 20 is then deliveredseparately to a conventional 'shufilng drum (Fig. 4) which will effect acom" pletely random rearrangement .of the cards. After being shmiled,the cards making up each double deck are stacked and then cut as indi-25 cated in Fig. 5 along the middle line between the two separateimpressions to form two separate decks of identically arranged cards.These two decks will then be boxed, preferably in a double box, or theymay be separately boxed with an appropriate' serial number which will bethe same for both decks.

For convenience in handling and to avoid the possibility of a rnisdealwhich might change the distribution of the cards so that the samedistri- 35 b-ution would not be had when thesecond of the duplicatedecks was played, the cards may be advantageously divided into hands ofthirteen each, fastenedtogether with paper bands or other 'se-paratorsappropriately marked with numbers or f the conventional designations,North, South, East and West. In Fig. 6 I have illustrated two pairs ofidentically. arranged decks divided, as de-' scribed, into separatehands, it being understood, of course, that the cards will ordinarily besold 45 insets of twelve or more duplicate pairs so that there will beenough dilferent hands to occupy an ordinary evenings play. By thisarrangement it is only necessary to distribute the already madcap handsto therespective players and when the duplicate pack is played the Northand South players of the first series will take the East and West hands.I

The invention is particularly useful for the playing of duplicate bridgetournaments Where a number of tables simultaneously play identicalhands. For making cards for tournament play the process above describedwill be modified. Instead of cutting the sheets of 24 or more imprintsof the same card into double cards, as above described, the large sheetswill be mechanically shuffled before they are cut at all. This shufllingcan be readily accomplished without labor and Without damage to thecards by discharging the large sheets of cardboard as they are printedinto the upper end of a vertical column against a rising stream of airof varying velocity.

Fifty-two sheets each containing a like number of similarly arrangedimpressions of one of the cards of the deck Will be shuffled at a time,and after they fall below the entrance ports of the air streams, will bestacked in the arrangement in which they fall and cut at one operationby a suitable die into a plurality of packs each with the cardsidentically arranged.

Various other methods may be employed for effecting the randomarrangement of the multiple cards and if desired a greater number ofidentical decks than can be made at one printing as above described, maybe produced by cutting in the margin of each of the large sheetscontainin a plurality of impressions of the same card, a differentlylocated notch for cooperation with the separating finger of electricalsorting machines of the Jacquard type. In these machines the cards to besorted are rearranged in any arbitrary order according to thearrangement of the perforations of a control card. After the sheets arearranged they are cut into individual decks as described and at the sametime the marginal portion containing the sorting notch will be removed.

I claim:

The method of making playing cards which consists in providing a seriesof sheets equal in number to the number of cards in the pack, eachhaving printed thereon respectively a plurality of Impressions of theseparate cards of the pack, shuffling said sheets to arrange them in arandom sequence and thereafter cutting the sheets to provide a pluralityof decks, each having the same identical random arrangement of thecards.

WOOLRIDGE B. MORTON.

